Before the Harvest
by hufflelit
Summary: As the Harvest draws near, Angel anxiously awaits Buffy's arrival in Sunnydale, and tries to prepare himself for the road ahead.


Angel arrived in Sunnydale two months before the Slayer. During that time, he waited, and he watched. Whistler had said it was his calling to help the Slayer, but when he'd passed through her corner of L.A. on his way south, he'd found it as quiet as an undisturbed grave, and nearly devoid of vampires. He'd stopped by her house, looked in at her window, and watched her lie curled on her side in bed, the covers up to her chin, her eyes open. She'd lain like that for hours, and he had watched her until nearly dawn, forcing himself to leave while he still had time to find shelter. He'd wanted to go back the next night, but Whistler had told him Sunnydale in no uncertain terms, and while he could feel the Slayer's presence like a tangible pull, he left her and drove towards the Hellmouth, which pulled him in a very different way.

He wasn't the only one. Sunnydale was swarming with vampires; more than Angel had seen in one place for a very long time. The Harvest was coming, and every vampire in town seemed to be holding its proverbial breath. The tension lay thick on the ground, thicker beneath it. There was a death nearly every night.

Angel even saw Darla early one morning by the playground, walking arm in arm with a young vampire she called Thomas. She was wearing a tartan skirt and a blue cardigan with a modestly buttoned white blouse underneath. She looked like a child, which she had never done when they'd been together, and Angel couldn't help wondering if Thomas liked her that way.

She hadn't seen him, but as she and Thomas had passed the swing set, she'd frozen in her tracks and looked tensely around.

"What's wrong?" Thomas asked.

Darla had squinted into the woods, where Angel was hidden.

"Nothing," she said at last. "I thought I felt…" She shook her head. "It'll be sunrise soon. Let's go home."

She was frightened, and that was another way Angel had never seen her. The Master must be growing impatient.

Even Angel began growing impatient as weeks passed and there was no sign of the Slayer. He wandered the streets at night, keeping an eye out; for what, he didn't know. He never witnessed any actual feedings, and for that he was grateful. It was deeply taboo to slay another vampire, unless one had very good reason, or was in a position of power, such as the Master was. While he might have taken the restriction as a challenge a hundred years ago, now every time he saw a vampire, he saw himself reflected in its eyes. He was soft after decades of introspection and self-pity. It was wrong not to fight them, he knew, but whenever he passed one or saw one walking down the street or away from the Bronze with a human, he managed to argue himself out of following. Whistler had said that he was supposed to help the Slayer, he told himself, not do her job for her. Or: who was he to pass judgment on those who were hardly different from himself? Or: he shouldn't give away his presence; Darla clearly sensed him already. Or, when he was in his darkest moods: vampires were his brethren; why should he risk himself to save one human? What good would it do? He was no hero, he knew, but then he never had been. That was the Slayer's job.

In order to distract himself from what he wasn't doing, he threw himself into tasks that seemed appropriate for the future helpmeet of the Slayer. He found an apartment with low rent and an appropriately disinterested landlord. Almost unconsciously, he found himself furnishing it, making a nest like he had in so many other places before Romania. He didn't know if this resurrected habit was good or bad – on one hand, it was nice to feel enough at peace with himself that he could imagine staying somewhere long enough to make it comfortable. On the other hand, reverting to habits he'd had as a demon was less than comforting.

As he began to feel like a resident of the Hellmouth, Angel turned his nighttime wanderings into expeditions of purpose. He memorized the layout of the town, the alleyways and the paths out of them, the doors in the industrial district that were sometimes left open, the rooftops that were close enough together to jump between, hiding places, good ambush spots, the places humans liked to linger after dark, ways to get in and out of the Bronze and the mall, places to shelter when the sun came up, and, less intentionally, five different ways to get to the butcher's shop.

When he entered his second month in Sunnydale and the Slayer still hadn't arrived, Angel grew bold enough – or reckless enough – to venture into the underground system of tunnels. Before long, he'd come to know it as well as the streets above, and could get from one end of town to the other without seeing a single ray of sunlight. He knew all the tunnel access points, including the one in the graveyard, the one in the mall, the one in the factory district by the Bronze, and the one in the school, nearest to the Master's lair.

He revisited that particular passage again and again, though he used the graveyard entrance, like the rest of the vampires. Every night, he dared himself to get a little closer to the Master's cavern – he'd even gotten close enough to hear chanting one night, and he thought he'd picked out Luke's voice, which was frightening, though unsurprising.

As soon as he got near enough to feel the energy of that place, every part of him that was human screamed with wild terror, and he found himself running back towards the mausoleum, gasping for breath he didn't need. The fear was far from exhilarating, but it made him feel more human than he had in decades, and so he returned at the end of every night, testing himself, trying to draw the soul in him to the fore.

One night he got careless and ran into another vampire – a young female he was sure he'd seen at the Bronze just a week before, human and laughing with her friends. She'd snarled at him, and he could remember those first heady days of immortality, when he was still adjusting to feeling like a titan. He growled low in his chest, and she stumbled back into the shadows.

Angel didn't return to the tunnels again. They'd be looking for him now, and that could end his career as someone to be counted before it even began. He didn't try to pretend that the thought of death didn't frighten him. It wasn't tenacity that had kept him from dusting himself long ago, but cowardice, and the hopeless belief that he deserved to suffer for as long as the gypsies saw fit to punish him.

He took to spending his nights lurking in the shadows at the Bronze, watching the humans and the demons, memorizing faces and eavesdropping. It was mostly uninteresting – teenagers hadn't changed much since he'd been one himself – and he wasn't sure if he returned there because he liked to be close to the humans, or to the demons.

One evening found him leaning against the wall near the red velvet couch, watching a girl who looked something like the Slayer. He realized quickly that it wasn't her – she was graceless, and didn't draw him at all – and he was about to turn away when he noticed another vampire by the pool table, eyeing her.

Angel's first reaction, shamefully, was possessiveness; the instinctual thought, _my kill_. He smothered the impulse, but kept an eye on the girl for the rest of the night, and when she and one of her friends left, the other vampire followed them out.

Angel followed at a distance for a while, tuning out the sound of the girls' talking and laughter as he watched the vampire skitter from trashcan to bush to lamppost, hiding from the humans who hadn't even thought to look for him.

Angel gave a soft puff of laughter. Another young vampire. It seemed that few of the Master's family had survived his disastrous attempt to open the Hellmouth, and he was apparently trying to rebuild his ranks.

The vampire seemed ready to make his move, and Angel, with no idea what he was doing, hurried forward.

"Uh, pardon me," he said. His voice was rough from lack of use and he cleared his throat.

The girls looked uncertain, but as he arrived next to them in the beam of a streetlight, their expressions cleared and they smiled at him. He could feel their attraction, and he cleared his throat again, wrestling down the instinctual reaction that rose up in him. It was a strong blow against human intelligence, he thought, that young women in Sunnydale hadn't learned not to flirt with strange men they met at night.

"Um. Do you girls… need someone to walk you home?" he asked, trying not to cringe at how bad he was at this. It had been a very long time since he'd tried to make humans want to be around him, rather than the opposite.

Luckily, these particular humans didn't need much persuasion.

The one he'd thought looked like the Slayer giggled and nudged her friend, and Angel couldn't figure out why he'd seen any resemblance at all.

"Sure," the friend said, grinning seductively. She had dark hair and skin and full, pouty lips, like a young nun he'd known long ago in Madrid. "Thanks."

"So, what's your name?" the first girl asked as they began walking. Angel glanced over his shoulder and saw the other vampire fade into the shadows.

"John," he said, turning back to the girls.

"Well, I'm Stacey," she said. "And this is Amber."

Angel smiled. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too, John," Amber said. "So, do you go to the Community College? You look kinda old for high school."

"I'm in town visiting relatives," Angel said. It was not completely a lie.

"Oh, cool," Stacey said. "Are you gonna be around long?"

Amber grinned. "Yeah, 'cause, if you are, you should come to the Bronze tomorrow night. A bunch of our friends are gonna be there. We could introduce you around."

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," Angel told her.

"Too bad," Stacey said. "Do you think you'll be coming back sometime soon?"

"I – I don't know," Angel said, surprised by her assertiveness. Girls had definitely changed since he was courting. "Probably not very soon."

"Aw." Amber affected a playful pout.

"So, John," Stacey said, looping her arm through his. Angel automatically bent his elbow to escort her properly. "What do you do?"

Angel glanced around and his eyes fell on the firehouse. "I'm a firefighter," he said.

"Really?" Stacey asked. "Oh my God, that's so cool! You're like a hero."

Angel couldn't help laughing. "I'm not," he assured her.

"No, you totally are," Stacey said. "Totally. So, have you ever been inside a burning building?"

"One or two."

"Wow," Amber said. "That is _so cool_. It's too bad you're not staying longer."

"So, are you two in high school?" Angel asked, trying to divert their attention.

"Yeah, we're juniors," Amber said.

"Ah. Say, have you heard about anyone transferring in?" Both girls gave him strange looks. "I heard an old friend of mine was moving here," he explained.

Stacey shook her head. "I don't think there's anyone new."

"Except the librarian," Amber said.

"John's not friends with the _librarian_," Stacey chided, rolling her eyes. "I mean, he's… _old_. And English, and wears jackets with _patches_ on the elbows." She rolled her eyes again.

"Well, I think he's kind of cute," Amber said.

Stacey scoffed and glanced at Angel, as if to share her derision with him. "Shut up, Amber." She looked confidentially at Angel. "Not many people move to Sunnydale."

Angel tried to seem innocently curious. "Why's that? It seems like a nice place to live."

"People die here all the time," Amber said. "It's like an epidemic."

"The crime rate is insane," Stacey agreed. "And you'd never guess, I mean, it's a cute town, and the weather's great. I guess it's not that bad – I mean, I've never known anyone who died—"

"Except Julie Carver," Amber interrupted. "And Ned Sullivan and his little sister Annie."

"Well, yeah, them," Stacey agreed. "But that was ages ago, and I didn't know any of them that well."

Angel wondered if it had ever occurred to either of these girls that knowing three murder victims by the time one was seventeen wasn't exactly the norm.

"That sounds scary," he said.

"It just makes guys like you even better," Stacey said, smiling flirtatiously at him. "Who knows who sort of creeps you saved us from tonight?"

Angel smiled. "Who knows?"

"This is me," Amber announced as they arrived in front of a blue and yellow house with a palm tree in the front. "Nice to meet you, John."

"You too," Angel said. "Take care."

"See you tomorrow, Stace."

"Yeah," Stacey said, not looking away from Angel. She was still smiling at him. "I live at the next corner," she said. "Walk me to my door?"

"Sure," Angel said. They headed off as Amber's front door closed behind her.

"So, do you have a girlfriend?" Stacey asked.

Very luckily, Angel thought before he answered. "I do." Stacey didn't look very disappointed. "A fiancé," Angel elaborated, and Stacey deflated.

"Oh. So you really are just chivalrous."

Angel laughed. "I try."

"Well, that's cool." She grinned, and the flirtatious look had gone out of her eyes, although her attraction was still strong. "Thanks for walking us home, John. That was really nice. I guess firefighters do that kind of thing."

"Oh. Yeah," Angel said, fumbling to remember his cover story.

"Well, maybe I'll see you next time you're in town?"

"Maybe."

Stacey headed up her front walk.

"Hey," Angel called after her. She looked over her shoulder. "Watch your back. This sounds like a pretty dangerous town."

Stacey grinned. "Thanks, John. I will."

Angel hadn't anticipated the euphoria that came with saving a life. He'd never done it before – not in any meaningful way – and knowing that Stacey and Amber would have been killed if not for him filled him with a sense of wellbeing. He had helped; he had made a difference to someone.

It was a few hours before he stopped smiling to himself and took a moment to think about what the girls had told him. There _was_ someone new at Sunnydale High, someone adult and English. Angel had never been particularly interested in Slayers or Slayer lore – not like Spike had been – but he knew as much about them as any vampire that had lived as long as he had; perhaps more after his time with Whistler. And he knew that Watchers were always from England. They were educated there in some secret Academy, the precise location of which was fiercely guarded by secrecy and more than a few spells. So the Slayer's Watcher was in Sunnydale, as well.

Upon first realization, this new information didn't mean much to Angel. He followed the man home one night and watched him long enough to determine that he really was a Watcher, but then left him alone. After all, he was there to help the Slayer, not her Watcher. But as the days drew on and the night of the Master's Ascension drew ever nearer, Angel began to toy with the idea of going to the Watcher and telling the man what he knew. If the Slayer didn't arrive in time to stop the Harvest, Sunnydale would be overrun, and she'd have a nightmare on her hands when she finally got there.

Then, one afternoon as he lay sleeping in his apartment, Angel felt the Slayer arrive.

He was in the middle of one of his recurring nightmares, one in which he and his demon were two separate beings, fighting each other for victory. Angelus taunted him as they fought, and grinned with pointed teeth and glowing yellow eyes.

"You're weak, me lad," he crowed, backhanding Angel to the ground. "But then, ye always were. I tried to make something out of ye, but look what happens the minute I turn my back, eh? Do ye really think you're any better than when Whistler pulled you out o' that gutter? You're an abomination."

Angel knew that he didn't stand a chance, but just as Angelus was closing on him, a black leather boot swung up and kicked the demon in the face. Angelus reared back, snarling, and turned to face his attacker, blocking them from Angel's sight. Angelus leapt forward, froze, and dissolved into ash. Standing in his place was Buffy Summers.

Angel woke with a start. She was here. He could feel her.

He dressed and, after some internal debate, entered the underground tunnels. Sunset wasn't for another three hours, but he'd go crazy sitting in his apartment waiting for it. He had to see her, and he told himself that was just because he wanted to see what state she was in, if she was prepared to stop the Harvest.

The tunnels were empty, and he supposed most of his brethren were still asleep. He kept expecting to run into other vampires who had sensed the Slayer's presence and were preparing an attack against her, but it seemed he was the only one who knew she was here.

It was a long, frustrating three hours before the sun went down. Every so often, the Slayer's pull would grow stronger, or he'd think he'd smelled her, and he would go tearing off in that direction until he lost the trail, or ran into a dead end in the tunnel system.

As soon as the hot, acrid smell of the sun faded and the glow around the manhole covers disappeared, Angel clambered up into the world above.

Without the confusing smells and sounds of the sewers to distract him, Angel found the Slayer quickly. Her house was largish and its white walls seemed to glow in the dusky light. Angel crept into the side yard, making sure to keep out of the rectangles of light cast on the ground by the house's windows. The rooms inside were full of moving boxes, and the Slayer's mother was bustling around in the kitchen, unpacking dishes.

Angel circled the house, and, arriving in back, saw a light on in an upstairs window. He scaled an evergreen tree and smiled as the Slayer came into view.

She was making her bed, facing away from the window as she tucked a white sheet into her mattress. She worked her way around the foot of the bed, and then she was facing him.

Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a baggy pair of overalls over a gray tank top. She looked very different from when he'd first seen her in L.A. – darker, colder, a bit harder. The changes didn't dim her spirit at all; he could still see it burning within her, a fire he prayed would never be quenched. She'd cut her hair, smart for Slaying, and the look of intensity on her face as she smoothed her comforter made it clear she was thinking about something other than making a bed. He supposed she had a great deal to think about, between moving to a new town and her Slayer duties. Angel hated the idea of adding another burden to her mind. She was the Slayer, though, and it was her duty to stop the Harvest. He'd help her however he could.

"Buffy?"

The Slayer looked over her shoulder at the sound of her mother's voice.

"Yeah, Mom?"

Her mother reached the top of the stairs and smiled as she stepped into the Slayer's room.

"This is a great room, sweetheart." She held her hands up as though the Slayer had been about to object. "I know it's not as big as your room at home – I mean, L.A.," he face colored briefly and she struggled to keep her smile in place, "but I think it's really lovely. And once you get all your stuff moved in, it'll feel perfect."

The Slayer smiled in a wholly insincere way. "I think so too, Mom. This is a really great house."

"Oh, it is, isn't it?" her mother said, clasping her hands and grinning. "I think it's just darling. And really, just the right size. We didn't need all that space we had in L.A."

"No," the Slayer agreed, her weak smile dimming further. She looked down at her bed. "Who needs space?"

"I'm gonna go pick up some groceries from that supermarket we passed on our way into town," the mother said, seemingly oblivious to her daughter's unhappiness. "You wanna come along?"

"No, that's okay," the Slayer said. "I should get some more stuff unpacked before bed. Make it… homier."

"That's a great idea," her mother said, patting her arm. "Is there anything in particular you want from the store? Donuts, bagels, ice cream…?"

The Slayer shrugged, her smile looking brittle. "I'm okay. Anything would be fine."

"I'll get some ice cream," her mother decided. She turned and headed towards the door. "Be back soon, sweetheart!"

"Have fun!" the Slayer called after her. As soon as her mother started down the stairs, the Slayer's smiled dropped off her face. She leaned her hip against the mattress and let out a loud sigh.

"Great," she whispered, her voice barely audible even with Angel's heightened hearing.

Angel watched the Slayer's mother leave the house through the back door and walk around to the driveway, where her car was parked. She pulled out and drove off down the road. When he looked back up, the Slayer was digging into a box apparently filled with stuffed animals. Angel couldn't help smiling; it was nice to know that her childhood hadn't been completely lost when she'd received her calling, but then, he'd expected nothing less from her.

"Here ya' go, Whiskers," the Slayer said, addressing a worn stuffed cat as she placed it on her bed between a small yellow duck and a round, pink pig. "Place of honor."

Angel watched her unpack her clothes next, of which she had a seemingly endless supply. He had thought that he'd never grow tired of watching the Slayer, but as she hung up the fifth dress in a row, he wondered if maybe he should take a walk and just check on her again before sunrise. Just as Angel was about to jump down from his perch, the Slayer paused. He hesitated as she crouched over a dented blue trunk and popped open the lid. She removed a shallow shelf from the trunk, then sat back on her heels, staring into the box's depths.

"You can take the girl out of the Slayer," she muttered at last, and pulled a cylindrical wooden stake out of the trunk before replacing the top shelf and closing the lid. She dropped the stake into a bag she'd tossed across her bed a while ago, and piled several notebooks in on top of it.

Angel felt a thrill of anticipation. He'd seen her kill a vampire by herself when she was just freshly called. He couldn't wait to see how she performed now.

There was the hum of a car's engine, and Angel looked down to see the Slayer's mother pull into the driveway. He was about to look away when he noticed movement in the bushes below.

A vampire was creeping through the foliage, out of sight and completely unnoticed by the woman that was now climbing out of her car and digging in its back seat for her groceries. Angel looked towards the Slayer's room and saw her standing in front of her closet with her back turned, hanging up yet more clothes. She had no idea what was about to happen.

Angel didn't think. He dropped silently to the ground and, bent nearly double, ran after the vampire. He found it crouching behind a shrub next to the car. The Slayer's mother was just a few feet away.

The vampire tensed to leap, and had barely left the ground when Angel's hand closed around its neck. The vampire let out a snarl of surprise and anger, and Angel caught a glimpse of the Slayer's mother straightening up with a gasp before he found himself on the ground, wrestling with the other demon.

The vampire's elbow collided with Angel's face and his head snapped back, giving the vampire time to twist out of Angel's grip and turn to face him. Angel growled as the vampire swung a fist at his temple, but Angel dodged the blow and kneed him in the stomach. The vampire doubled over with a roar of pain and Angel smashed its head into his knee. He heard a door slam and looked up to see that the Slayer's mother was inside, her groceries abandoned in her open car.

Angel paid for this moment of distraction with a sharp blow to the jaw, and he snarled, feeling his face morph.

"You bastard," the other vampire growled. "That was my kill."

"I'm really sorry," Angel said sincerely, and swiftly broke the vampire's nose. It roared in pain.

Angel reached back and ripped a branch from a nearby tree.

"Didn't mean to step on your toes."

He drove the branch into the vampire's heart. Its yellow eyes went wide for a moment before it crumbled into dust.

Angel stared at the place the vampire had been.

The back door of the Slayer's house banged open, and he ducked as the Slayer herself appeared around the corner of the house.

"Buffy, don't go out there!" her mother pleaded, peering anxiously over her daughter's shoulder. Angel crouched lower, feeling his face morph back to its human imitation.

"You said it sounded like wild dogs?" the Slayer asked, staring around. He thought her eyes paused on Angel's hiding place before moving on, but perhaps that was just his imagination.

"We should call animal control," her mother said. "They'll handle it."

The Slayer pursed her lips. "I'm getting the groceries."

"Buffy, no!"

But Buffy had already stepped off the lawn and onto the driveway. She strode to the car and balanced the four brimming shopping bags with no trouble. She looked around once more, then kicked the car door closed and returned to her mother, who struggled to heft two of the heavy bags.

Buffy glanced over her shoulder once more before returning to the house.

Angel smiled and sank back into the shadows.

He'd meet her soon, and he needed to buy her a present.


End file.
